Halloween

I can't remember the last time I've been this exposed to Halloween festivities than this past week, and I didn't even participate in any of it! Starting with last Friday, people at work were talking about dressing up and going out over the weekend (3 days before the actual holiday). Then on Monday, co-workers were talking about what they were for Halloween weekend and that perhaps we should get dressed up for work on Halloween. Today, almost all the employees of the museum had costumes on, and I was told that 'the place' to go tonight is Mill Avenue, where the road will be closed down to traffic and people dress up and hang out at the bars and clubs there. Perhaps it's just the people I've been around the last four years, but I completely forgot how popular of a holiday Halloween is, and that adults really make a big deal out of it!

People at work must think I'm weird, every time someone asks me, 'What are you doing for Halloween?' or 'What are you dressing up as?', I respond with, 'I don't really celebrate it' or 'I don't get dressed up'. While I've heard the view that Halloween is a pagan holiday with occult roots, and that Christians should not celebrate it, I've never used it as a reason for not participating, because I'm really not quite sure what God says about it. Honestly, whether it has negative spiritual roots or not, it's still a pointless and silly holiday. What are we actually celebrating? And to be completely frank, I don't have the creativity or time to be bothered with dressing up. I have a hard enough time deciding what I want to wear each morning! So for most of my life, out of my dislike for crowds, craziness and partly my own laziness, I've pretty much just ignored Halloween every year.

But as a Christian, I think I do have the responsibility to at least have a view on what God's Word says about celebrating a holiday that has spiritual roots. If someone asks me, I should have an answer. After all, if I have kids one day, Halloween is going to have to be a topic of discussion. This is what wikipedia says about the history of the holiday. "The modern holiday of Halloween has its origins in the ancient Gaelic festival known as Samhain. The festival of Samhain is a celebration of the end of the harvest season in Gaelic culture. Traditionally, the festival was a time used by the ancient pagans to take stock of supplies and slaughter livestock for winter stores. The ancient Gaels believed that on October 31, the boundaries between the worlds of the living and the dead overlapped and the deceased would come back to life and cause havoc such as sickness or damaged crops. The festivals would frequently involve bonfires, where the bones of slaughtered livestock were thrown. Costumes and masks were also worn at the festivals in an attempt to mimic the evil spirits or placate them." In many cultures where this holiday was celebrated, it has some association with the dead. I think all Christians can agree that we should not be celebrating the dead and attempt to mimic evil spirits with masks.

Okay, with that in mind, let's fast forward to today, where Halloween is almost as commercialized as Christmas is. Is anyone trying to mimic or placate evil spirits by dressing up on 10/31? Most likely not. It's a fun opportunity to be creative and dress up as whatever you wish for that one day and no one will look at you like you're crazy. It's a chance for parents to buy cute outfits for their kids and hang out with them trick-or-treating. It's time to gather around the table and carve pumpkin faces with your family and friends. No one is actually celebrating the 'root' of the holiday. Just like there are people who 'celebrate' Christmas but don't have faith in Christ as their Savior.

So if one is a Christian and is not celebrating the 'spiritual' side of the holiday but rather just the cultural side like dressing up and trick-or-treating, what does God say about that? Obviously these are just my thoughts and I could very well be wrong, but I see at least a few factors that must be considered here. 1) While we are in the world, it is clear that we are not to be 'of the world'. If everything we do is exactly the same as the world, what makes us different as followers of Jesus? I was listening to a CD of a sermon by the head pastor at Calvary Community Church and he said, 'our practices don't save us, but they SHOW that we are saved'; 2) 1 John 2:15 says, 'Do not love the world or anything in the world'; 3) In 1 Corinthians 8, Paul talks about eating food offered to idols, he says that we as Christians know that idols are 'nothing', and that food is just food, whether it's been offered to idols or not doesn't make a difference to us because we worship God, not idols. BUT if by our eating of food offered to idols, it causes a 'weaker' brother or sister in Christ to stumble, then we shouldn't do it out of love for them; 4) Finally, Paul says in 1 Corinthians 6:12, 'All things are lawful for me, but all things are not helpful. All things are lawful for me, but I will not be brought under the power of any.'

Given these factors, if we choose to not participate in any Halloween festivities, I don't think we should be self-righteous and proclaim to the world that we don't celebrate the holiday because it's demonic and we're Christians, as if we're 'above it all', lest we cause other 'younger' Christians to stumble. On the other hand, if we decide to partake in the cultural events, we should check our hearts and motivations, and make sure that the things we participate in do not conflict with God's Word and do not hurt our, or anyone else's, spiritual walks. We definitely should not be 'obsessed' with the holiday, spending a lot of time and money and brain power around it. I guess a good check would be, imagine one year where you were not allowed to celebrate Halloween, what would your reaction be? Whether we dress up or not for Halloween is probably not a big deal on the surface, just like whether or not we eat food offered to idols; it's just food, and it's just a costume. But like Paul said, even though we 'can' do all things, it doesn't mean that we should, lest it harms us in any way.

As for me, I still see it as a silly holiday, with no real 'good' coming from its festivities. It's much like going to a bar. I don't think it's wrong in and of itself, but no 'good' comes from it either. The consequences are neutral / irrelevant with the potential of being harmful. Hence, I think I will continue to ignore the holiday, unless I see a good reason for participating one year.

Those are my thoughts, thanks for reading! Please feel free to give your own opinions and thoughts! :)